Favorite authors gain my attention in unexpected ways. When I was a teenager my mother came home from the library one day with the second book in the Lord of the Rings trilogy and suggested it was something I’d like. I began reading, smack in the middle of Frodo’s adventure, and I knew at once I had to read the entire trilogy. I also knew J. R. R. Tolkien would be a favorite author. Come to think of it, that was my introduction to the modern fantasy genre, in the form of a serendipitous teenage realization that Mom actually understood me a little.
I haven’t taken time lately to browse for hours in a bookstore or library, as I like to do. Instead I’ve acquired books by grabbing them as I rush down the aisle at the warehouse store or the supermarket. This isn’t the best method, and I recently quit reading two or three mysteries chosen this way, tossing them down in disinterest partway through. I find I’m partial neither to the author with the florescent paperback covers, nor the one whose name I keep confusing with someone else’s when I’m in a hurry. No need to name them here. I finish reading the books I like, and I only review books I finish.
Sometimes my haphazard method of selecting books pays off. I picked up The Probable Future while I dashed through a warehouse store shortly before Christmas. A crowd stood between the table full of books and me, so I reached my hand between metal baskets. My quick scan of the blurb on the back cover led me to think I’d found a mystery with a hint of the supernatural, but it isn’t a mystery in the genre sense at all. Its mystery goes deeper than whodunit, and characters come to life within its covers to enchant the reader, as does the entire fictitious New England town called Unity. I found a story I could savor.
The Sparrow family have lived in Unity almost since the town has existed, in an old house that’s been added on to so many times it’s assumed the shape of a wedding cake. The residents of Unity know it as Cake House, and its inhabitants present a mystery the townspeople don’t want to solve, or even have much to do with, in spite of the sacrifices the Sparrow women have made to the community through the past two centuries—or perhaps because of them.
Each Sparrow woman develops a unique gift at the age of thirteen, and these gifts aren’t necessarily blessings. Elinor Sparrow can tell when someone is lying. Her daughter Jenny can enter others’ dreams. Jenny’s daughter Stella, in her turn, wakens on her thirteenth birthday with the ability to see how some people will die. Her gift lands Stella’s father, Will Avery, in jail when he’s wrongly accused of murder after trying to warn the authorities about one of his daughter’s premonitions.
This is not a story of how the murder is solved. In fact, that becomes a minor detail. It’s a story about a family, a town, and how a much older mystery is brought to rest, of how the Sparrow women first came to live in Unity, the part they’ve played in its history, and where they’re headed. It isn’t packed with action, either. The reader enters the life of each character as one would enter the life of a new friend, easing one’s way in and beginning to see the world through the other’s eyes. The patient reader is rewarded by the full richness of Alice Hoffman’s writing. In the world of novelists, Hoffman is the equivalent of the dedicated cook who spends an entire day preparing a meal with love, creating everything from scratch, and possibly by magic. Other cooks open cans and stir up store-bought mixes, some toss everything into the microwave oven. They feed our stomachs, while the gifted cook—and author—feeds our souls.
When I began reading The Probable Future, I didn’t realize Alice Hoffman also wrote Practical Magic, the novel adapted a few years ago into a film of the same title, starring Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman. This doesn’t come as a surprise, though. Practical Magic the movie is a favorite of mine, and now Alice Hoffman the author is a favorite as well.
1.
Your mother gave you “The Two Towers?” What about Nancy Drew?
Comment by Mark — January 22, 2005 @ 4:19 am
2.
Nancy Drew? I was in high school at the time she brought home The Two Towers. Although the character Nancy Drew is a perpetual teenager, the Nancy Drew books themselves are aimed at a younger audience.
Comment by Barbara — January 22, 2005 @ 12:59 pm
3.
Just a casual comment to probe your teenage reading proclivities. I was a Hardy Boys and Tom Swift man myself. I devoured those books when I was thirteen. Then came girls - and it was all abandoned.
Comment by mark — January 23, 2005 @ 8:30 am
4.
When I was younger I read Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women and Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House books. Anne of Green Gables was a favorite too. (I read some Nancy Drew books, but they didn’t really stay with me.) Later I read nearly everything by Mary Stewart, Phyllis A. Whitney, and Victoria Holt. They wrote mostly romantic suspense, but Mary Stewart also wrote The Crystal Cave and The Hollow Hills, novels based on the Arthurian legends from Merlin’s point of view. Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles and Far From the Madding Crowd captivated me during high school. That was also when I fell in love with the poetry of Emily Dickinson, Sara Teasdale, and William Wordsworth, among others. After Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings I read Watership Down by Richard Adams, and when my husband and I were dating he introduced me to Robert Heinlein (Stranger In a Strange Land was the first of his that I read), and Frank Herbert’s Dune series. I liked the first Dune books, but not the later ones. I think they turned a corner after the first two or three, which I also believe is about the time Herbert died and others took over the series, but I’m not sure.
All this makes one wonder when I got interested in mysteries, doesn’t it? It must have been the three queens of romantic suspense, mentioned above, who headed me in that direction, especially Mary Stewart. But I also recall being awestruck by Poe’s The Purloined Letter when I read it in high school, and one of my grade school teachers read several Sherlock Holmes stories to the class.
You asked , and this is nowhere near a complete list.
I’ve left out the Brontës and Jane Austen. . . .
Comment by Barbara — January 26, 2005 @ 10:22 am
5.
That sounds interesting. I think I’ll put it on my “to read” list. I just finished a book, “Ella Minnow Pea” It was fascinating.
Comment by cassie-b — January 28, 2005 @ 12:55 pm
6.
How eclectic.
I must be the only guy in America who has thoroughly read Jane Austen. Something about her style and wit. Really the first best thing I read, way after schooling when I thought it was all stupid.
As for “Tess,” - yes! So evocative if sad. I love that book.
I often pause by the mystery aisle at Barnes & Noble, because I think I would like the genre, but I have no idea who is good. The books just stare at me, then I pick up the latest Grisham or something like “401K’s for Dummies”
Comment by Mark — January 29, 2005 @ 3:23 am
7.
I remember always thinking Thor Heyerdahl’s adventures were for men, not something I’d like. But then I read Fatu-Hiva and I enjoyed it immensely. I watch action films with my spouse, and he watches romantic comedies with me.
Comment by Barbara — February 2, 2005 @ 5:42 pm